Spoilers: Some imagery from "Demons" (US4) Set during the events of "One Breath" (US2) Author's notes follow. Ticking by Martha Little mwlittle@mindspring.com ******************************************* Now you'll never get to heaven, Mama said Remember Mama said - ticking, ticking. Grow up straight and true blue, run along to bed Hear it, hear it - ticking, ticking. ******************************************* He sat uncomfortably in the cool of the darkness. The high-back leather chair off to a corner afforded a sweeping view of the nearly empty room when lit, but at night, in the dark, the setting of the hardwood floor became a stage where the events of the past played themselves out. To manipulate, to reinvent. To be recast. But first he would need to remember. What was it about that night? What could he not recall? A car turned onto the street of the apartment complex, its headlights filtering in through the slits of the closed blinds opposite him. The rays reflected off of the particles of dust circulating the oft-ignored room, creating a snowy curtain that would then part and present a tableau from his past. His parents were arguing. He and Samantha were upstairs - they had heard every word. Or sort of heard. It was like listening to a cassette player with rundown batteries while on a really bad acid trip. The lights that popped white like those old camera flash cubes and then faded. The sound of the wind outside of the house that November evening that seemed to wrap around the occupants of the first floor and carry the voices straight back to the hellhole where their lives had oozed forth. Memories and flashbacks were all he had to keep him company these days, and he wished that they would just fall off the ends of the earth. Like his parents. Like his sister. //Not my baby.// His mother was crying on the couch. Not just the sobbing of sadness but with the gut-wretching agony of being made to face your executioners without the comfort of a blindfold. Of being the target in a game of Russian Roulette when three chambers have been tested against your temple and you are running out of chances too damn fast. Does it matter now who was holding the gun? //You're a little spy.// There's a shadow in the corner. There is always that shadow in the corner opposite himself. Watching. And waiting for the next move. //Take her - not me.// He flinched at the sound of the voice from the past, his voice. He could see his younger self from a distance. He was leading her down the staircase, dragging a screaming Samantha after him. //Take her. Take her, not me.// Over the years, his mother had withdrawn. Denied herself the pleasure of being a mother because the son had made the decision for her. The father who would not decide had withdrawn for different reasons - for he was now afraid of the son who would act so selfishly. The smoking shadow in the corner took note and smiled. And tonight, Mulder remembered. *********************************************** Don't ever ride on the Devil's knee, Mama said Remember Mama said - ticking, ticking. Pay your penance well, my child, fear where angels tread Hear it, hear it - ticking, ticking. *********************************************** Years later, Mulder would repeat the request. //Take her.// There was no emotion in his voice. There was none left. It had been beaten out of him years earlier. He had learned as a child to detach himself from the personal, from the emotional side of getting involved with a subject. He had taken the screen that his parents had been able to shield themselves with and fortified it with an iron resolution. Of course, in the end, it had been shown that all his parents possessed was a veil - thin and delicate like lace, easy to tear to see the cowering figures that they had become. He had them sent away when they were no longer useful to The Project. And now he had made a similar decision. It was a flippant suggestion, made out of scorn for someone who acted at times like his bratty little sister. To take her away so that he could be left in peace. //Take Scully.// The man before Mulder that day had paused in mid-drag of a cigarette and remembered a night long ago. When Mulder, then a mere child, had struck out angrily at a world that he did not understand without fully anticipating the consequences. From that night, however, the child had grown stronger in perseverance and made his own unique niche in the Consortium. The man that Mulder had become was the embodiment of all that the smoking man had hoped for and more. A decision had been made. There were no expressed regrets or lingering doubts. None that shown, at least. As he remembered those two instances from the past, Mulder looked for the smoke that had always signaled approval. But he was alone now, in the stillness of the dark, and the air was clear. He had never worried about Samantha's fate; he had been told that she was alive, but he never thought to ask if she was safe. Likewise he had never worried about Scully, because he knew that she could take care of herself and would therefore be safe. Why had he begun to think about her? Or even care? Why now? Because she had come back? Because she had survived? No, it wasn't that, he thought. It was something *about* Scully. He let his mind explore the possibilities of that notion. She had changed, but then anyone who had been missing for the amount of time that she had been with the variety of experimentation that he knew had occurred *would* be changed. But there was something else there. He felt it in talking with her at the hospital and prompted her to discuss some old cases. She kept mentioning her work at Quantico which Mulder found unusual as she had been assigned to the forensics lab upon the dissolvement of their partnership. Her early lack of stamina and confusion would account for some memory loss, but what about the differing memory of events? She should have simply remembered nothing, not make up something new. Unless she was not the same woman who was taken. Not *really*. Unless she was *another* Dana Scully. Unless . . . ************************************************* You've slept too long in silence, Mama said Remember Mama said - ticking, ticking. Crazy boy, you'll wind up with strange notions in your head Hear it, hear it - ticking, ticking. ************************************************* end Notes: The title and referenced lyrics are from "Ticking", lyrics by Bernie Taupin and music by Elton John and are used without permission. If you know the entire song, please do not infer any greater meaning between the song, this story, and recent national events. This was written during and just after the 1998 Thanksgiving holiday. This is a chapter in a larger AU piece that has been going nowhere fast for a number of months. Thanks to those who have read and made suggestions previously - gizzie, SallyH, and Plausible Deniability.